SpaceX has plans for a million new satellites - yes: million

SpaceX has applied to U.S. authorities for permission to send no fewer than one million satellites into space.

The company says the reason for these new satellites is the need to create data centers in orbit, primarily because terrestrial data centers are no longer sufficient to secure enough computing capacity due to the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. In addition, according to the company, “orbital data centers” are also the most cost- and energy-efficient way to increase this capacity.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been praising for some time how space is the best place to locate servers to support the internet and AI, since space offers almost unlimited electricity—generated directly from the Sun with solar panels. Moreover, servers in orbit are convenient because of the growing communications infrastructure already in space and increasingly moving there (Starlink and its future competitors).

SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has about 10,000 satellites, and more are launched several times a week.

The headline image is a (not at all realistic) visualization created by the Grok AI of SpaceX’s server satellites, made for its sister company.